Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter (TCIS) is partnering with Philmetal Products Inc. to help address the need of 5.9 million homeowners for quality but affordable housing materials.
The partnership, YCIS said, will be rolled out in Cebu and will focus on creating strategies to educate and increase access to strong, resilient, and decent homes.
The project will also introduce quality roofing and house framing products to pilot areas located in various towns and cities across Cebu.
“We saw the need to involve the business sector in reaching out to households that build homes by themselves. By supporting market actors to be more inclusive, we encourage businesses to reach larger markets by providing products and services that are affordable and accessible to low-income households,” Jessan Catre, country lead of the Terwilliger Center’s Philippine Shelter Venture Lab, said.
The partnership, TCIS said, will also train artisans and construction laborers on product features and equip them with improved skills on roofing installation.
The objective of the training is to upskill these workers and educate their local communities on how to properly use and install roofing materials as they build their homes incrementally.
TCIS said Philmetal pioneered the introduction of roofing innovations using patented technologies. The company is considered a leader in the metal roofing and steel frame industry.
“It has always been our company’s mission to raise the standards of metal roofing materials and other building products for Filipinos. This partnership helps push our advocacy as we try to reach those households who need access to quality materials the most,” Philmetal Visayas’ General Manager Paul Bugarin said.
The TCIS said the collaboration aims to address the need to engage private and civil society sectors in addressing unserved households in the country.
Last year, the TCIS report showed the Philippines’ housing needs stands at 5.9 million units, which include households that are struggling to incrementally build a decent home.
This segment, TCIS estimated, represented a market value of P626.5 billion or $13 billion. In Cebu, the total number of households that build homes by themselves is estimated at 134,000.
Housing is also a larger-than-expected contributor to the Philippines’s GDP with a contribution of 14.9 percent, on a par with sectors such as manufacturing, which often draw more attention in economic recovery plans.
In the country, the undercount of the entire housing sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP is already at P1.39 trillion or $29 billion, according to the report.